Black Beauty 1971

Black Beauty is a stallion who, as a foal in England around 1856, is born in front of a boy named Joe Evans [Mark Lester], to whom it is given by his father. He is taken by the brutal squire Hackenschmidt [Walter Slezak], who takes over Joe’s family farm when the bank forecloses on the loan. After the squire is killed, he is acquired by Irish Travellers. After a horse race and fist fight to determine leadership, Black Beauty runs away but is captured by a horse trader who then sells him to a Spanish circus.

In the circus, he learns many tricks before being given to Sir William [John Nettleton], an arrogant British military man; and then is passed to Sir William’s daughter Anne [Maria Rohm]. Anne’s fiancé is Lt. Gervaise Caldicott [Peter Lee Lawrence], a half French half English hussar officer whom Sir William falsely accuses of being a coward and unworthy of his daughter’s hand. When Gervaise volunteers for overseas active military service to prove his bravery his fiancée gives him Black Beauty as his steed.

Black Beauty then travels to the Northwest Frontier, where Gervaise is killed in battle.

Because of his bravery in battle, the horse is shipped back to England, but is then sold by Gervaise’s comrade in arms, now a penniless and alcoholic army officer. The horse is used for hauling coal by another heartless owner, but acquires pneumonia. At his most sick, he is rescued by a friendly old woman who runs a farm for retired horses and her employee, some time after 1870. The employee turns out to be Joe, the boy from his foal, while the woman was Anna Sewell [Margaret Lacey].